Bottle from Wine Authorities in Durham. Cheers, guys... and keep buying beer! Pour hazy dark golden orange with a generous white head with moderate retention and good lacing. Nose is subtly complex, with earthy hay, yeast, tart wood, white pepper, dust, and light fruits all making an appearance at various stages. Taste shows more malt characteristics and some nice caramel apple up front, but midpalate is tart and it finishes almost bone dry. I was unimpressed at first blush, but this is a beer that rewards if you sit with it for a bit. Lovely.

750 ml. bottle. Best by 5/1/17. Must be pretty fresh for an import... It pours a burnt orange color with a tall white head. The aroma is subtle with some light fruity notes of apple and pear. Some toasted grains as well. The flavor is pleasant with more peppery farmhouse character, light floral and herbal hops, toasted grain and pear/apple fruit. Everything is in good balance. The mouthfeel is medium to heavy with a hint of peaches and honey sweetness. High carbonation. Really pleasant and tasty stuff.

Bottle from Ledgers in Berkeley, CA. BB 30/04/10. Hazy orangey color with a fizzy white head that didn’t stick. Aromas of citrus, taffy, funk and likely lots of other stuff. Near medium body with fizzy/frothy carbonation. Flavor is earthy, mildly funky, with a little citrus. It seems quite well balanced. Spices or herbs do strange things to my mouth. Maybe there are real flowers involved. I really like this stuff. Hey, it’s a biere de garde. Got to love it.

Pours a lightly hazy orange color, fairly clear at the start of the 750, muddy and cloudy as can be towards the end (and yes I did pour carefully throughout). The head is a medium size, white in color & leaves a good lacing on the glass.

The aroma is malty and has a lot of perfumey floral pungency that does settle down a bit in time. The beer displays a nice light barnyard aroma and some graininess.

The flavor has a nice balance of lightly toasty malt and hop flavor both earthy and leafy. The beer is nicely bitter and has a lot of bright fruitiness. The beer has mild grassy flavors and is generally dry throughout but not without some subdued malty sweetness.

This is really very enjoyable, I always get so suspicious when my Biere de Garde or Saison are as amber hued as this is, but more times than the old world examples of this are fantastic and this is no exception. I will say though that at first it took me a minute to catch up with what was going on here but by the time the bottle was finished I just wanted another.

750 Pours initially clear with some cloudiness towards the end, you will find some sediment on the bottom of your last glass for sure. Largely floral aroma is penetrated by lighter notes of malt and hops. You will also notice a medium-size off-white head. taste initially hit me as semi-sweet with almost grape / champaign flavors that progress into and ends with a medium bodied, slightly bitter floral taste with a lot of carbonation. All in all I would say the taste is pretty clean with a bit of floral / hoppy bite coming in at the end, leaving a very pleasant taste on the tongue. On another note, the guy that brews this is extremely cool, his brewery is in southern france and he used a very sustainable / organic method (His kettles are heated with manure from the goats he uses to make cheese with)

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